She sees, reads and writes. It feels okay.

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Monthly Archives: September 2019

It’s been two and a half years (!) since I last posted but holy cow, listen, I can explain: I didn’t feel like it.

A lot has happened in the interim and now I find myself dying to tell you everything, but forgive me, I’m rusty. My fingers are made of rust from lack of fucks. The biggest thing is that I gave up Writing as a Life Ambition, and what a relief. Picture me, a fledgling freelancer/penniless dog walker in Michigan, having moved back home for the millionth time, months/years since my last publication, and every day feeling the sickly disappointment of not having written that day. I don’t have the discipline is the long and short of it, or maybe it’s lack of ambition, I don’t know. Whatever J. Robert Lennon has that makes him publish a book a year is a thing I do not have.

You should have seen me on the day it finally occurred to me that I could just give up. The sun was shining. The birds were– let me put it this way. My life’s drive can be summarized entirely by two motivational posters of equally opposing weight and force. The first you’ll find in any childhood classroom from 1968 onward, the implications of which are obvious.

“Determined or not, that cat must be long dead. That’s kind of a downer.” -Marge Simpson

The second poster is more obscure. I’ve seen it only once, circa 1989, hanging on the inside door of a garden shed in a childhood friend’s backyard.

These have been gnawing on either side of my head for my entire life, and even the more optimistic one of the two doesn’t exactly cradle you with reassurance.

Not writing is the greatest, don’t get me wrong. The trouble began when I started reading again. That’s how hubris gets her slimy foot in the door. I keep reading these bullshit novels by sundress wearing turds (no offense) and I’m losing my goddamn mind. (Check out my goodreads, I’ve been spitting into a void). I’m saying I know I can do it better. Even just hypothetically speaking, I’m still my favorite writer, and I still want to write a book, some day. I just need to practice, and thanks in advance for helping me along.

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Small Book

The world was dull or annoying to him, and she was just like any other female, he felt: she had certain functions. And he had seen those functions turned inside out by high explosives, he knew what was inside people, and there was nothing there. It was gross. It was boring. It was sickening and that was all.
From Preparation For the Next Life, by Atticus Lish